Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Nature and Revolution in Marcuse’s Philosophy of Praxis

 It sounds a very compelling book. Part of a review of Affluence and Freedom: An Environmental History of Political Ideas

Could ‘bioregions’ be the answer?

A liberal view that doesn't answer the questions: How could capitalism, a system based on profit and capital accumulation, protect nature? Could capitalist production develop technological means to maintain both: private accumulation and safe eco-systems? Could that happen without exploitation and obscene inequality, and with continuous growth? We are seeing some movement towards green transport, for example. To what an extent though such a movement could be extended to encompass the major global industries without at the same time jeopardising the rate of profit? Will states be able to impose new ways of production in a system where private owenership of such industries reign? Or, will states themselves carry out a change in investing in green and sustainable ways of how we produce, eat, and move? Coronavirus is a warning to us to mend our broken relation with nature . Who's "us"? "Us" implies that we are all responsible and we should work together

Nature's wake-up call to complacent civilisation

"Viruses mutate all the time to be sure. But the circumstances in which a mutation becomes life-threatening depend on human actions. But the economic and demographic impacts of the spread of the virus depend upon preexisting cracks and vulnerabilities in the hegemonic economic model. Public authorities and health care systems were almost everywhere caught short-handed. Forty years of  neoliberalism  across North and South America and Europe had left the public totally exposed and ill-prepared to face a public health crisis of this sort, even though previous scares of SARS and Ebola provided abundant warnings as well as cogent lessons as to what would be needed to be done. Corporatist  Big Pharma  has little or no interest in non-remunerative research on infectious diseases (such as the whole class of coronaviruses that have been well-known since the 1960s).  Workforces in most parts of the world have long been socialized to behave as good neoliberal subjects (which means

Only a rational economy can stop the devastation of nature An economy that abolishes the private ownership of the means of producing wealth and finance, and combines democratic production, distribution and consumption.

A book review A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things (The book is currently half price on Verso website and even cheaper as an e-book)

"the void of intimacy and the powerful distraction of our tech devices."

Iran's most wild and beautiful places